


Photograph

by taradiane



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Romance, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-05
Updated: 2014-04-05
Packaged: 2018-01-18 05:50:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1417438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taradiane/pseuds/taradiane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Funny how such a little thing can change the course of your life... the discovery of a photograph is what changes Draco's course.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Photograph

**Author's Note:**

  * For [psychobarfly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/psychobarfly/gifts).



> Written January 2003. This is one of the first stories I'd ever written, and was originally posted without having been beta'd. This is a fully edited version, which is far less embarrassing (in retrospect) than the original.

Draco Malfoy used to always say that he despised all things Muggle. He was lying.

 

There was one possession, one solitary item that was entirely Muggle in both making and completion, to which he clung. A tad bigger than the size of a Chocolate Frog card, it was kept with him at all times, placed carefully in the left breast pocket of his crisp linen Hogwarts shirt. He came across his prize by accident during his fifth year, by mere chance, and knew instantly that he had to have it.

 

It had been lying there on a library table, unattended, amongst several others of its kind. There were none quite like that particular one, though; none quite like _his_. It had caught his eye immediately, standing out in sharp contrast and practically invited him to give a closer inspection. After having checked to make sure no one had been watching, he'd approached the deserted table and leaned over for a closer look.

 

What had made the item different from the others was the fact that it didn't move. It was a Muggle photograph, taken recently by the Creevey boy. A photograph of Harry Potter.

 

If there was one thing that Draco would begrudgingly admit about Creevey, it was that he took stunning pictures - be they wizard or Muggle. This particular portrait had been no exception. It was... _haunting_. The moment that Draco had laid eyes on it, the image had been burned forever into his memory. This one perfect image of this imperfect boy who had refused his friendship years earlier, having chosen that pathetic sidekick Weasley over him and all that he would have offered. 

 

And so Draco had easily stolen the photograph and claimed it as his own.  At the time, he didn't know why he had to have it.  He just _did_.  The thought of anyone else owning it, _looking_ at it, had made his insides burn.

 

In the photograph, Potter's face had been angled every so slightly, while his eyes - such a sharp green that Draco had never seen anywhere else - had been fixed on something (or someone) unknown in the distance. Creevey had either been very close to Potter at the time (which wouldn't surprise Draco in the slightest - the boy was practically a second shadow to The Boy Who Lived), or had used one of those long, fancy lenses that Draco had often seen him snapping on during Quidditch games, the ones that always produced close-up pictures of things that Draco knew to be far away.  A small grin had graced Potter's mouth, barely reaching his unblinking eyes, and Draco had found it strange to see Potter so abnormally still...although that's also what had originally called out to him that day in the library.

 

Draco had spent countless hours trying to decipher just who, or what, was on the receiving end of that smile. If he were to be honest with himself, Draco would admit that he sometimes wished it had been _him_. And on some nights, when the curtains were closed and the only light came from a whispered incantation, he would hold the photo at just the right angle so that it _was_ him.

 

He'd been in possession of the picture for a good two days before he had noticed the one thing (aside from its stillness) that had made it so unique. Harry hadn't been wearing his glasses. It was glaringly obvious to him once he'd realised, so why hadn't he noticed it before? Draco couldn't recall a time that he had ever seen Potter without his glasses. Their absence had given his face a vulnerable innocence that made the picture that much more intimate. Draco knew deep down that _that_ had been why he'd stolen the photograph that day.  Seeing Potter that way, those eyes which only ever glared at him - or worse, looked right _through_ him as if he wasn't even there - so carefree and exposed, no smudged lenses obscuring his view, was like dangling forbidden fruit in front of Draco's face.  Did Weasley and Granger always get to see Potter like that?  When they sat around in their common room eating sweets and celebrating yet another day of breaking rules without points deducted, had Potter looked at them the way he'd looked in Draco's photograph?  

 

Draco had spent many sleepless nights staring at the photograph that didn't move, yet seemed alive nonetheless. Every detail had been traced and re-traced a thousand times by his own delicate fingers.  And it had been prodded on more than one occasion by his holly and dragon heartstring wand in a futile attempt to make it move...to make Harry _see_ him. It never did.

 

There were details about Potter's face that he'd doubted even Ron or Hermione had noticed in the many years that they'd been friends. Had they noticed that the tips of Potter's dark eyelashes were a shade lighter, thereby making them appear shorter than they actually were? Had they noticed the worry lines that appeared between the two heavy brows that weren't present the year before? Had they noticed the flecks of blue within the pools of green, or the starburst pattern of the iris? Did they understand the intimacy that came from knowing someone's features so well that you could sculpt them with your eyes closed?

 

Had they _seen_ the same Harry that Draco saw in this photograph? Or had they taken for granted the fact that they had barely even _earned_ the friendship that he had spent years of his childhood believing would one day be his?  Because that had been how it was always meant to be.  Potter was one of the most famous wizards to ever live, and his mother had told him, when he was still small enough to sit on her knee, that one day he would meet the Potter boy, and he would be Draco's in the way that Vincent and Greg were...but it would be even better, because Potter would understand the value of what Draco was giving him by offering his hand.

 

But things hadn't worked out that way at all.

 

Draco had originally hid the photograph in the warded false bottom of the drawer in his bedside table.  He hadn't begun carrying the photo around with him until after he had awoken late one morning with the prize still clutched in his hand. Nearly late for breakfast, he had dressed hurriedly and hadn't wanted to waste time putting it away, instead shoving it into his shirt pocket where it had remained the entire day. When he'd seen Potter in Potions later that morning, he could feel the stiff paper brushing against his skin through the thin fabric of his shirt. It had felt like a secret, and Draco liked secrets. And so the photograph stayed with him always after that moment.

 

Months after he'd stolen it, Draco had soon discovered that he had another secret to keep as well.

 

If you ask Draco when his opinion of Harry Potter had begun to change, he might tell you the truth. He might tell you that the picture became a treasure because he had been desperate for something to hold onto when the real thing had always been so unattainable, despite his mother's promises. Draco would sometimes catch himself muttering to the fading photograph, much like he did with the family portraits that hung within the grand halls of Malfoy Manor. Only Potter wasn't dead. He was very much alive. And sometimes Potter would be right across the room, sitting at a large oak table, _looking_ at Draco, and Draco could only press his palm to the chest pocket that harboured his secret.  Draco had divulged many a secret to that photograph.  All of his fears and hopes, dreams and wishes...

 

Draco could pinpoint the exact moment his feelings started to change, if pressed. He might tell you that it had been that moment when, seven months after his bit of thievery, Harry had caught and held his gaze during breakfast. And Draco would recall the faint remnant of that snapshot smile still playing across Potter's lips when their eyes had met, but once again, that smile had been meant for another. What he won't tell you is that ten minutes later, his palm had still been pressed against that pocket, and the heart that beat beneath paper and linen had stuttered and quickened; his body's signal that told Draco that things had definitely changed.

 

And on the last day of their sixth year, with their futures so uncertain, Draco had walked up to Potter - _Harry_ \- who had been standing alone by the lake on Hogwarts grounds. Harry had looked at Draco, saying nothing as Draco had reached into his pocket to hand over what had never been rightfully his. He'd taken the proffered photo, running his fingers lightly across edges that had frayed and curled. Harry had stared at it for several long moments, then met Draco's hesitant gaze, giving him that snapshot grin that finally reached those sharp green eyes. The smile that had finally been meant for Draco.

 

_"I thought you would have lost this by now, Draco,"  Harry had said softly._

_"You...you knew I had it? All this time?"_

_"I saw you take it during last year, just before Halloween. In the library."_

_"Why didn't you say something, or take it back?"  Draco knew his flushed cheeks had belied his casual tone, but knew there was no point trying to conceal it.  Potter had apparently always known Draco's secret - part of it, at least._

_"I figured you wouldn't have taken it without a reason."_

_"I did have a reason. I...I just didn't know what it was until it was too late." Draco looked down at the photograph in Harry's hand._

_"Yes, you have kept me waiting a long time, haven't you?"  Harry's laugh was gentle._

_Draco looked up at this, his eyes filled with what could only be described as hope. "What?"_

_Harry didn't answer, just took Draco's hand in his, lacing their fingers together._

 

_"Walk with me?"_

 

~*~

 

Ten years later, when Draco no longer had need for the lackluster photograph, he still kept it with him. Harry would sometimes laugh about it when he would discover it in various places around their home...marking a page in a book Draco had been reading, or shoved in a trouser pocket, or propped up against the lamp on Draco's bedside table like it was right now.

 

"Are you ever going to throw this thing away?"

 

"No."  Draco batted Harry's hand away from the picture, the visage now dull and faded.

 

"Why not? I look like such a... _boy_."

 

"I know." Draco answered him fondly, looking over at Harry and deciding to refrain from mentioning the fact that Harry still looked very much like a boy, even nearly age thirty. Draco mused that even when Harry's old and grey, he will still have that boyish countenance.

 

"Why do you keep it?"

 

"Because."

 

Harry removed his glasses and leaned over Draco to put them on the table, propping up said photograph, and stopping for just a moment to place a featherlight kiss at the corner of Draco's mouth. " _Because_? Keeping secrets now, are we?" Harry let out a small laugh, knowing Draco had many secrets.

 

"I like secrets."

 

"I kind of miss being your secret, actually...all the sneaking around at Hogwarts during our final year." Harry wrapped his arms around Draco's waist, pulling him closer and marking the curve of Draco's neck with delicate kisses.  

 

"No, Harry, you were always my greatest truth."

 

Harry pulled back and looked at Draco with faint surprise before letting out another soft laugh. "You sap!"

 

Draco grinned back sheepishly, "Well, you asked."

 

~*~

 

fini.


End file.
